[SOLVED] Ram will not run at rated speeds,

[foghornleghorm]

hi, these are my specs:
MAG b550 tomahawk
r5 5600
red devil 6800xt
2x16 3600 cl16 kingston fury renegade
corsair rm750x 2021
WD blue 570
here is the problem:
after i built my pc, everything was fine except for frequent stutters regardless of if i turned XMP off or on.
soon after this i fixed my stutters by doing a full reinstall of windows and all drivers.
for about a week my pc was lovely and ran nice and smooth with XMP, untill i enabled AMD SAM.
after this, i encountered games crashing, not launching and various different BSoDs.
even after disabling SAM, the issues remain and lead me to where i am now:
everything seems to be fine at stock speeds (2400), but at XMP (3600) the instability comes back.
things i have tried:
lowering speeds: i have tried 3200 and 3000, 3200 is instable just like 3600 and they both throw up "hardware error detected" when running windows memory diagnostic, but 3000 seems to be perfectly fine.
changing DIMM voltage: i tried to increase the DIMM voltage from 1.36 (its rated at 1.35 but in bios fluctuated between 1.36 and 1.364 which i believe is very normal) to 1.37, 1.38 and 1.4 with no luck.
reset bios: i have tried to reset bios settings to default with no change at all.
manual OC: i have tried disabling XMP and manually overclocking my ram to the rated speed of 3600, and leaving the other settings to auto. i have had no luck with this.
updating bios: i have updated the bios for my mobo (b550 Tomahawk MAG) from ver A8 to A9, this has had no effect.
notes: my ram is not on the QVL list on the website for my motherboard, however this shouldnt mean much as people on amazon reviews stated that the ram was fine with that same mobo, and the ram was fine for me untill i toggled SAM.
i honestly have no idea what could have caused this, especially due to the fact that SAM seemed to have an effect on it, even after disabling. one thing i remember was after enabling SAM, i got a notification in windows about resize bar (which is the same thing basically), this makes me think that windows maybe installed something to make SAM work which could be inteferring with my ram?
anyway, im nearing my wits' end with this and have been troubleshooting for hours everyday when i get home from school, and am even considering just living with 3000mhz even though ive paid for more. if anyone has any kind of advice or possible solutions, any inout would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

updating bios: i have updated the bios for my mobo (b550 Tomahawk MAG) from ver A8 to A9, this has had no effect.
If this is the motherboard you're working with;
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B550-TOMAHAWK/support
then let's do a recap;
7C91vA8 = AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.5
7C91vA9 = AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.6c
So what you did was move away from 1.2.0.5 which is actually a good thing as that microcode had ruined many people's computing experience.

That being said, you have two more BIOS versions pending or one if you decide to jump to the latest version; i.e, 7C91vAB

Are your sticks of ram populating slots A2 and B2 per the motherboard manual? Also, do remember to clear your CMOS after you've successfully flashed the BIOS to the latest version. You're advised to power down the system, disconnect from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery and then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds to drain any residual power. Replace the battery after 30 minutes and then boot to BIOS, enable X.M.P or input all stickered info of the memory into BIOS(D.O.C.P).

 

[foghornleghorm]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

updating bios: i have updated the bios for my mobo (b550 Tomahawk MAG) from ver A8 to A9, this has had no effect.
If this is the motherboard you're working with;
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B550-TOMAHAWK/support
then let's do a recap;
7C91vA8 = AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.5
7C91vA9 = AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.6c
So what you did was move away from 1.2.0.5 which is actually a good thing as that microcode had ruined many people's computing experience.

That being said, you have two more BIOS versions pending or one if you decide to jump to the latest version; i.e, 7C91vAB

Are your sticks of ram populating slots A2 and B2 per the motherboard manual? Also, do remember to clear your CMOS after you've successfully flashed the BIOS to the latest version. You're advised to power down the system, disconnect from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery and then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds to drain any residual power. Replace the battery after 30 minutes and then boot to BIOS, enable X.M.P or input all stickered info of the memory into BIOS(D.O.C.P).

thanks for the reply, i wasnt aware that the other 2 bios were final versions, as i thought the A and B stood for alpha and beta. i will upgrade my bios tomorrow and come back with the results.

my ram is populating A2 and B2.

what does clearing the CMOS do? i did not do this after updating bios, am i in trouble?

 

[Lutfij]

Clearing CMOS resets the BIOS to defaults. It's a clean slate after a BIOS update so you don't have any residual settings that might cause an issue otherwise.

 

[foghornleghorm]

Clearing CMOS resets the BIOS to defaults. It's a clean slate after a BIOS update so you don't have any residual settings that might cause an issue otherwise.

oh right, so is the "reset settings to default" option in my bios different to that?

 

[foghornleghorm]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

updating bios: i have updated the bios for my mobo (b550 Tomahawk MAG) from ver A8 to A9, this has had no effect.
If this is the motherboard you're working with;
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B550-TOMAHAWK/support
then let's do a recap;
7C91vA8 = AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.5
7C91vA9 = AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.6c
So what you did was move away from 1.2.0.5 which is actually a good thing as that microcode had ruined many people's computing experience.

That being said, you have two more BIOS versions pending or one if you decide to jump to the latest version; i.e, 7C91vAB

Are your sticks of ram populating slots A2 and B2 per the motherboard manual? Also, do remember to clear your CMOS after you've successfully flashed the BIOS to the latest version. You're advised to power down the system, disconnect from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery and then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds to drain any residual power. Replace the battery after 30 minutes and then boot to BIOS, enable X.M.P or input all stickered info of the memory into BIOS(D.O.C.P).

i have updated to the latest bios, and xmp seems to be working great! windows memory diagnostic shows no hardware error like it did before and havent had a crash yet. thanks.